XXLclub casino disappears with players' money!

**XXLClubCasino** · 17th December 2007, 06:14 PM

Finally a reply from XXL Club!

First let me apologize to all players for the lack of response and the ongoing payments problems.

Like I have tried to explain previously in single posts to players we have relocated our offices and part of our staff to a new office.

During the move we also decided to change the way we operate the casino from a partially external management (email support, fraud, finance) to a fully integrated operation where only our own staff will be responsible for the all operation.

During the move we have encounter a couple of serious problems mostly legal issues that needed to be clarified and handled before being able to make the move.

We are now almost operational and "only" need Playtech to reconfigure our casino to support the new structure.

All players that have a pending withdrawal with XXL Club Casino that wasn't handled by our previous payment processor should please PM me. We will arrange wire transfer or Neteller/Moneybooker payments within the next weeks, hopefully before Xmas.

To by knowledge we have 13 pending player payments and 4 open Affiliates payments.

I hope this post will reassure some of the casinomeister members that we won't just disappear with players funds.

Our goal is to resume full casino operation by January and operate every single casino processes ourselves. This is the only way to be able to fully satisfy players in a timely manner without depending from external process we have unfortunately no control over.

Thank you all for your patience,
Frank

**Casinomeister** · 17th December 2007, 06:22 PM

Hi Frank,

Welcome back to the forum:

Originally Posted by XXLClubCasino

To by knowledge we have 13 pending player payments and 4 open Affiliates payments...

That's a mere 17 emails you could have periodically sent to let these people know you were still viable. This moving server bit has taken (as far as I can tell) a couple of months. Keeping your customers and affiliates in the loop during this apparent mucked up move should have been a priority. Just my 2 Pfennigs.

**XXLClubCasino** · 17th December 2007, 06:53 PM

Brian you are absolutely right, communication is everything!

So far I know all players were informed and until last week we also had our 24H chat support open for players even so we didn't take any players deposits since the end of October.

Anyway we had a lot of trouble to solve from new staff members to legal incorporation and contracts with new partners. Honestly at some points I wasn't even able to follow every move and changes myself.

This shouldn't be an excuse. I'm not looking for one, what matters the most to me right now is that all players get paid what is due to them. Neither Playtech nor we are interested in operating rogue casinos and be labeled as such.

Prior to reopening our self managed casino I will make sure every player get paid, preferably before New Year so to be able to start a clean new operation!

Thank you for keeping the communication upright and staying objective.

**cyprean** · 17th December 2007, 08:13 PM

So you are taking deposits again?! Great news!

/sarcarms

On a more serious tone, after 2 months of silence, why would you feel now that players would trust your casino anymore ?

**XXLClubCasino** · 17th December 2007, 09:07 PM

Hi Ceypran

We are not taking new deposits at the moment until Playtech reconfigure our casino for the new payment gateways and before we sort all pending withdrawals.

I don't need you to trust our casino or not, this is not my point at the moment. I first want to sort everything out our players satisfaction. If we succeed we will get the appropriate credit for it. After that it will be up to the players to play at our casino or not. I won�t be forcing anyone to play at XXL Club.

I'm confident that when we will have full control of all casino processes from A to Z we will be able to offer the top class service we always wanted for our players.

PS: As a side note, we have always keep the players informed and our chat support was answering all players inquiries until last week when we switch of the chat support office and send our operators in vacation until we accept new players deposits. Not answering to post in a forum is not being silence. A casino operator can't track all forums in the world and answer to all posts mentioning either playtech or XXL. One to one answers to the players have priority to forum posts IMO.

**vinylweatherman** · 18th December 2007, 01:22 PM

A couple of years ago, this might have been forgiveable and trust would have returned eventually, BUT, look around you at what is happening to the industry, players being ripped off left, right, and centre. Casinos that really HAVE gone bust have done EXACTLY as XXLClub has done, except they have pretended. They spin yarns about moves, changes of processors, etc.

This move was CLEARLY not "planned by a 5 star operation", it had all the hallmarks of something you were forced into with no time to plan an orderly changeover. XXLClub is not some huge multinational, and this move should have been over in a couple of weeks. It has taken since October, and even now, three months later, is still not complete. During this time, information has been limited, and what has come out has turned out to be innaccurate.

Funnily enough, there has been a complaint about another Playtech, Fastwin, also no longer responding to a player. Being a Playtech really does not help, as it is well known that when a Playtech goes under, the players are left high and dry - hardly surprising then that panic sets in when a two week move turns into 3 months of non-payment, even if for only 13 players and 4 affiliates.

13 unpaid players and 4 unpaid affiliates can do a lot of damage if they know where to air their displeasure.

I am also worried about these "legal issues" - this does not sound like a simple office move and change to in-house operations, this sounds like you fell foul of something, and were FORCED into this action. Why would Playtech hang around trying to get you up & running, surely they don't get their fees while the casino is offline.

Anyone operating a casino with software whose other licencees are gladly ripping off players, who have no real means of redress through the software vendor, must realise that they must go the extra mile to convince players that they are somehow different. Just look at how the few reputable RTG operations have to work to separate themselves from the rogue hordes.

I don't think anything short of full accreditation will save XXLClub now, as this will mean Bryan has had a really good look at you, and met the owners and management, and approved the juristiction.

**XXLClubCasino** · 18th December 2007, 05:17 PM

I clearly accept the arch critic addressed to XXL Club. The move to an independent casino wasn't planed like you said but we decided as a group to make this move, due to different opinions about how things were handled on a daily basis.

I would like to clarify that Playtech as a company as absolutely nothing to do with what happened and that the casino owners decided to go a different way, this after analyzing in details how the casino was running.

Please keep in mind that our main market as always been Russia and will remain Russia. Due to Russian law changes we had to rapidly make structural changes so not to risk having the B&M casinos that are part of the same group closed.

Honestly I also don't think that we need to be saved by anyone! I like to participate in this forum as the members are well informed, interesting and knowledgeable but casinomeister is only representing a infinite small part of our target market and will only have a small impact on our global revenue.

Nevertheless one unpaid player is one too much and we need to correct this.

**Casinomeister** · 18th December 2007, 05:35 PM

Originally Posted by XXLClubCasino

I clearly accept the arch critic addressed to XXL Club. The move to an independent casino wasn't planed like you said but we decided as a group to make this move, due to different opinions about how things were handled on a daily basis.

But why keep your players and afiliates in the dark? As a group, did you decide to cut off communications to these people?

I thought that the players come first in a 5 star operation.

Originally Posted by XXLClubCasino

Honestly I also don't think that we need to be saved by anyone! I like to participate in this forum as the members are well informed, interesting and knowledgeable but casinomeister is only representing a infinite small part of our target market and will only have a small impact on our global revenue.

There may be only a few Russians hanging around (only around 430 visited Casinomeister last month), but don't forget - Casinomeister is much more than just a message board. It would be ill-advised to throw caution to the wind by underestimating Casinomeister's reach

**maxd** · 18th December 2007, 05:35 PM

Originally Posted by XXLClubCasino

... casinomeister is only representing a infinite small part of our target market and will only have a small impact on our global revenue.

Are you sure about that? I'm not saying that bad press on CM is going to break you but for every member you see here who posts there are a thousand readers who read and remember. And what you do here becomes part of the public record ... _forever_.

I applaud your participation here for a variety of reasons ... but you wouldn't be the first casino manager who thought the message boards don't matter much and found out the hard way that that isn't quite the way it is.

**aghastik8** · 18th December 2007, 06:33 PM

Originally Posted by XXLClubCasino

I clearly accept the arch critic addressed to XXL Club. The move to an independent casino wasn't planed like you said but we decided as a group to make this move, due to different opinions about how things were handled on a daily basis.

I would like to clarify that Playtech as a company as absolutely nothing to do with what happened and that the casino owners decided to go a different way, this after analyzing in details how the casino was running.

Please keep in mind that our main market as always been Russia and will remain Russia. Due to Russian law changes we had to rapidly make structural changes so not to risk having the B&M casinos that are part of the same group closed.

Honestly I also don't think that we need to be saved by anyone! I like to participate in this forum as the members are well informed, interesting and knowledgeable but casinomeister is only representing a infinite small part of our target market and will only have a small impact on our global revenue.

Nevertheless one unpaid player is one too much and we need to correct this.

I have just sent you a message regarding 1045 euro stuck in my Xxlclub casino account.